NEW DELHI: Retail inflation based on consumer price index (CPI) accelerated to 6.01 per cent in January, data released by government showed on Monday.
The inflation figure for the month of December was revised to 5.66 per cent from 5.59 per cent, as was reported earlier.
Consumer prices were buoyed by rising costs of food, fuel and household items.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mainly factors in retail inflation while arriving at its bi-monthly policy.
Reserve Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC) has been tasked by the government to tame retail inflation based on consumer price index (CPI) at 4 per cent (+,-2 per cent).
January's figure crossed the upper limit of RBI's targeted range.
Food prices, which contribute to nearly half of the consumer price index (CPI), rose 5.43 per cent year-on-year in January, compared with 4.05 per cent a month earlier.
Prices of edible oil rose nearly one-fourth from a year ago.
Last week, the RBI's MPC kept key lending rates and its stance unchanged to ensure a broad-based recovery and projected retail inflation to ease to 4.5 per cent in the next fiscal year.
Das also said the Reserve Bank of India is working on the borrowing programme for the next fiscal year, while the country's inclusion in global bond indexes is also a work in progress.
The central bank has slashed the repo rate by a total of 115 basis points (bps) since March 2020 to soften the blow from the coronavirus pandemic and tough containment measures. The rate is now 250 bps below the level at the beginning of 2019, when the easing cycle began.
Earlier in the day, India's wholesale price index (WPI) stayed in the double digits in January, for the 10th month in a row, as firms grapple with rising input costs and more pass on higher prices to consumers.
Wholesale prices in January rose 12.96 per cent from a year earlier, less than the previous month's 13.56 per cent, government data showed.
RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said the central bank was committed to its inflation mandate and the uptick in January inflation to the upper end of its target band should not create any panic.
(With inputs from agencies)
